Understanding Beauty
by TheSingingGirl
Summary: Rosalie is not shallow. Look at her past; how could she be shallow? Look at her first few years as a vampire, through her eyes, and understand. But understanding a person is not always conducive to getting on with them... Previously 'Understanding'
1. Would you like to hear my story?

A/N: I know, I know. I shouldn't be writing. But I am. This story is a look at Rosalie's view of her family in those first few years between her change and her engagement to Emmett.

* * *

Engaged. Again. It's an absolute miracle. After I woke up, before I even saw my glowing scarlet eyes, I had already decided I would never contemplate any sort of relationship ever again. I didn't know if I was alive or dead, whether the pain had driven me mad and I was somehow hallucinating; I didn't care, it didn't matter. Whether I was in heaven or hell, or by some hideous twist of fate still living, I would never look at another man the same way. They could look at me all they wanted; I would never look back.

Though I've changed over these past few years, I still haven't let go of that mentality. I've become less shallow; even if I don't show it often, I do think deeply. Such a violent change in my life fairly forced me to start thinking. I'm still vain; I freely admit it. I still value myself higher than anyone else, with the obvious exception of my fiancé, but I have changed, because I look closer now at the world. At people. My family in particular. Such different people, thrown together by chance, fate, and always by death. We were all traumatised in one way or another.

So I stuck to it. Behaving flirtatiously, provocatively, was my way of asserting the fact that they couldn't have me. I was a newborn vampire—I could kill any of them as soon as I could look at them. So I treasured my beauty, holding it as my only trump card, my power over the world. There was nothing to rival me, and I would let nobody, no ignorant, insensitive, immoral, cruel, deceitful, arrogant, aggressive _man _even attempt to become my equal.

Esme, I loved immediately. She reminded me so much of my own mother, but closer. More caring towards me, rather than the opportunities I presented. She sympathised, but more than that she _empathised._ She knew what it was like to be betrayed by a man you thought you loved. She knew what it was like to lose not only all my unborn and never-to-be-born children, but to lose a child who she had already known, and loved. She sat and talked to me for hours on end, paving my way to as accepting a resignation as I could manage. She treated me as a daughter from the very first day, and I filled the role easily, though I was older now than I ever could have been at home with my biological mother.

Carlisle, I came to trust. He accepted calmly and compassionately that I needed to storm and rage to deal with what was described in hushed tones as "my ordeal". He had tried to save me. And I could see even in the way that he moved around her that he loved Esme with everything he possessed. Still, I was wary of him at first. I was proud and passionate; I didn't deign to respond to his kindly words. It wasn't until Esme sat me down and spoke to me as an equal, as a female vampire, that I finally broke down and allowed him to become the father that he would remain for the rest of eternity.

Then there was the other man in my new so-called life.

Edward understood. I hated him for that.

I hated him for a lot more, too. I hated that he was unattached, and yet he didn't respond to my full curves, to my flowing hair, to my full lips, to my thick eyelashes. I hated that I couldn't hold any power over him because he wasn't vulnerable to me. I didn't want him to love me, I wanted him to want me so I could turn him down.

I was most probably being vile to him. I knew it, and didn't consider changing. He understood that, as well. And he didn't hate me for it.

That was why I hated him, I think. He knew everything I ever thought, everything I ever contemplated thinking. He was an intimate witness to the ordeal. All the thousands of times I played it in my mind, committing it to memory as a warning to myself, he saw it again and again and again. He saw every kiss, every touch between Royce and myself, every loving gesture that I tainted now with my bitter memories, every aspect of my violent hatred. He knew everything, and he didn't hate me for it. He understood.

He wrote me a piece of music. He never told me, he never acknowledged any of the thoughts that told him we all knew. It was the most frightening thing I had ever heard. The lilting, light opening, then the dark crashing chords and leading to the haughty, controlled coda. He wrote it down once, without a title, but I had been educated in music enough to recognise it and tear it into a thousand pieces when he was out hunting and couldn't hear me. He returned to find the pieces strewn across his piano bench, saturated in my scent. I knew he could have played it perfectly from memory, but he never did. He understood.

How dare he understand? He was not my equal. No man was my equal, even those ones who were impervious to my charms. How dare he know my darkest thoughts and fantasies and never once hate me for them? Neither did he pity me. He knew that I did not want or need pity;I was not pitiful. How dare he know that?

It was only two years between my 'ordeal' and the day I found Emmett, but it was enough time for _me _to start to understand _him_.

Edward was a strange creature. His brief foray into a human life and now this darkened existence made him that way, I suppose. He lost so much when he was changed, without even the reassurance that those he had been close to were alive still. At least I knew that my friends and family were alive to grieve me; I understood that he missed his parents dreadfully, even though he would never admit it. He gave it away when I asked why he had a jewellery box and just said in that quiet, completely unemotional trademark voice of his, "It was my mother's."

He did that whenever his human past was mentioned. He would shut his emotions down completely, rather than let the memory hurt him. He did it, too, when anyone thought of his 'rebellious years'. No one mentioned them, of course, except when Esme recounted me the story, and she made sure to do that when he was out of the house. When Edward shut down, we all knew that he was feeling too much, and living in the past. He was the complete opposite to me; whereas I take my feelings out with passion, he quietly ignores them and pretends they don't exist.

Edward was a strange thing, and still is; not a boy, but not a man either. He was only seventeen when he was changed, still a child. He still lived with his parents, never had to take on any true responsibility, never had to consider the rights and wrongs and morals of the world around him though it was true that he must have thought about them a great deal more than I had, when suddenly he was thrust into a world that was really far more adult than he could ever have dreamt of. A world of compulsory blood and murder. A world where he could hear the thoughts of everyone, whether they liked him or loathed him, whether what they were thinking was benign or malevolent, whether or not they would provoke memories he tried so hard to bury.

I pondered on that once, and immediately decided that it would be the most horrible thing in the world, to hear everything. He walked past at that point, caught my eye and just nodded.

He was a child, really, and yet he didn't let Carlisle and Esme become his parents. He treasured the memory of his mother and father too much, was my guess, but even then I doubted he would have let it happen anyway. Part of it was knowing what they were thinking—he couldn't place himself below them when he knew more about them than they themselves did—but there was more to it. He was too old to need parents, and too young to live without them. I couldn't give name to their relationship; maybe he could have been a nephew? There was also the fact that he considered himself far below them because of those rebellious years. He had been like a brother to Carlisle before, or so I was told, but when he returned he could not bring himself to reprise that role. He could have been a son to Carlisle, and in ways he personified the perfect son: always looking up to Carlisle, always trying to emulate his compassion, his self-control, but he didn't seem to consider himself a son to Carlisle, no matter if he considered Carlisle to be a father.

The strangest thing was the way he placed himself on the outside of our nuclear family, and yet Carlisle and Esme tried to draw him in. They firmly placed him at the centre of the family, and he firmly placed himself at the very edges. To him, I only served to push him further away, hating him as I did. To them, I could have been the key to bringing him closer.

In a way, they were right. I filled a gap in his life, not that I liked it. I gave him a definite status in the family, because I became his younger sister. Of course, I was older than him in one way at least, but his gift gave him misplaced maturity and set him above me. Therefore I let him feel secure in that odd place of his, almost below Carlisle and Esme, almost on a par with them. I think I was his way into really feeling part of a family. Not the solution, but a hint. I don't know if he'll get there. I don't know if my marriage to Emmett will change that.

So far, if anything, Emmett has brought Edward even closer into the family. He's on familiar territory for the first year or so, dealing with a newborn. And they do seem to get on. Edward never had a brother; I think the experience is doing him good.

Emmett has been a blessing to all of us. Esme delights in mothering him, Carlisle finds his joy and enthusiasm infectious, and I've found my soulmate.

To think that I ever could have pretended to love Royce King! Even before I found out that he was more a monster than I ever could be, I was never in love with him. I know that now. I knew it then, really, when I looked at Vera and her husband and saw how they were together; I knew that was love, not this marriage for convenience and status that I so nearly went through with. I don't think I believed I would find it, though. I knew in my head that Royce was the perfect beau, so I never stopped to think or feel with my heart, foolish girl that I was back then. So innocent, so naive and so close to losing any chance of what I share with Emmett.

Emmett is nothing less than a miracle. The only one of us who has entered into this life and loved it. The only one of us who didn't spend the first few days completely distraught. The only one of us who doesn't feel he has given anything up. He is everything I could ever have asked for, had I known what to ask for. He is a child for Carlisle and Esme, he is a brother for Edward, he is a protector, a lover for me.

I pushed him away at first. I was horrified at what I'd done. I had changed him on a whim, on a selfish impulsive decision that would have been typical of my human self before I understood the consequences. And then... he was a man. Not attached, like Carlisle, not invulnerable to me, like Edward. No, Emmett was so vulnerable to me and I behaved as I had always done. I flirted with him coldly, then caught myself in horror as I realised I was doing this to my own chosen victim and completely ignored him. The cycle was interminable.

How silly that it was Edward who brought us together. He talked to Emmett only a week or so after his change, told him my history, explained why I acted the way I did. He told him not to pity me, but pity is not in Emmett's nature. When he heard of the ordeal, he reacted with sympathy, true, with horror, and with rage. Rage against the men who had dared to touch me against my will, who hadn't appreciated me for what I was.

When I first saw that rage, it was when I would walk into a room and it would fill his eyes, scarlet and glowing, iridescent with ire. I thought he was furious with me to begin with. I thought he had decided I was not worth pursuing and so had begun to blame me. It was Edward again who told me the truth. I began to love him then. No, I began to love him the minute I saw his face. But I began to love the man behind the face then.

Edward sent us hunting together that same night, assuring Carlisle and Esme that he would go with us to help me control Emmett if needs be. He promptly deserted us as soon as we were out of eyeshot; he was fast enough to get away with it. To this day I don't know if he stayed close enough to avert any potential catastrophes or if he did truly leave us alone. He was right, of course; Emmett and I needed the time together, alone. Even if we hadn't been on the very brink of falling in love, we needed to make clear where we stood.

On that first hunt, we were both a little afraid, I think. Unusual for the both of us. But somehow the conversation, which had previously been stilted and awkward, turned to how Emmett had felt upon my finding him, and he told me he thought I was an angel. He told me how I looked to him: beautiful, but broken. Those were the words he used.

"You're so beautiful, but... oh, I don't know. You just seem...kind of hurt. Scared of hurting more. Broken."

He understands. I love him for that.

* * *

A/N: This may stay a oneshot, may not. Tell me what you think. And do tell me if you disagree with any aspects of Rosalie's character. This is just my impulsive, instinctive interpretation, typed without any sort of plan at all. I just started and then stopped, and this is what came out.

Update: A couple of minor changes there. And further to reviews I've decided that this chapter will become a sort of summary, and this will turn into a multi-chaptered fic documenting Rosalie's first two or three years as a vampire. Who knows when I'll start, but start I will, I promise!


	2. The doctor and the dining room

A/N: Warning, it's a long one.

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I fell to the ground, crying out yet again as the icy pavement hit my head, though I had only enough strength for a whimper. I don't think they heard me; they were all laughing, one had begun singing the wedding march.

"You'll have to get a new wife, Roy!" one shouted, slurring his words.

"You mean a new bride," another corrected, sloppily. "If she was his wife, he coulda done that in his own home."

I heard him laugh then, Royce King, my betrothed, my prince. "You think I need another one? I'll 'ave to learn a bit more patience first, eh?"

Their laughter was raucous, harsh against my torn, bleeding ears, but they were leaving me now to die. I was dying, I knew that. There was surely no way that my body could sustain that amount of pain and still survive. How was my mind still thinking? How was I still registering the horror?

They had all attacked me. There were five of them, and they all had to have their fill of me. All of them. Royce had been the first, claiming me as his, his fiancée, his beloved. I was still pleading then, still begging. He winded me in order to stop me crying out, punching me hard in the stomach so I would not protest as he pulled my skirts up around my hips. He didn't hurt me as badly as some of the others, but I knew that wasn't due to a residual gentleness or any sense of love for me. It was because the competition—to cause me the most pain—only began with the second. John, his name was, John from Atlanta. He slapped me when I begged with him to have mercy, and I screamed. The competition began then, with its initial aim to make me scream. When I couldn't scream anymore, it was merely a competition to hurt me as much as they possibly could. They kicked me and slapped me and grabbed me roughly, they pushed me against a brick wall, forced me to the floor, held me up against them when I was too weak to push away. There was one who tried to scratch my eyes, but he only ripped my eyelids and broke my nose. The one after him decided to bite me, my neck, my already bleeding lips, my hands, my breasts, anywhere he could. I think he won the competition, but they were all too excited by their stolen lust to care anymore. Their panting, their filthy cheers and breathy cries of pleasure fell around me like hailstones, stinging me over and over again. He was the last.

Now I was lying on the cold, hard, unforgiving ground, staining the pavement with my blood and the wretched tears that would make my ripped eyelids smart no matter what I did to prevent them. There was pain in every part of my ravaged body, though some stabbed through more violently. Between my legs felt as though I had indeed been stabbed. How could anyone claim that this was an act of love, that I would enjoy it when it was my turn? If it felt like this, how could it be anything but torture?

Snow began to fall. White, pure and innocent; I felt disgusted to be sharing the same bloodied street with it. The cold I welcomed, hoping it might numb me, but it didn't. If anything, it seemed to sharpen the aches and aggravate the throbbing wounds. Too much of my skin was now open to the elements; my beautiful, expensive dress was only shredded tatters of cloth now. It was too late for any sense of plundered dignity, but the cold was hurting me. Wherever the snow settled lightly on my wounds, I would want to flinch again, but I had no energy to even attempt any sort of movement. My breathing was slowing, I could feel, but each time icy air swirled into my lungs, a sharp pang of agony would rip through my chest. I wished I could stop myself breathing, but it was so much easier to keep going, to inhale and exhale, to live. Why did life choose now to be easier than death?

Let me die, let me die...

If I lived, what would there be to look forward to? No man would have me; I was sullied and dirtied, and I could not be beautiful now. I would not take Royce, never. He most probably would not take me either, not now that he had taken me already. I would never again be loved by any, admired, wanted. No one would want me now. My parents would be revolted by me: a useless repulsive daughter.

I thanked God that I was dying. My left eye, almost intact, gently shut. My right remained vulnerable to the thickening snow as the remains of my eyelid flapped ineffectively. The wedding would have to have been inside... My thoughts were beginning to drift. Did that mean I would soon drift, too? Please, let it be quick. Let it be now. Why must it take so long?

Suddenly, there was a man there. Another. Please, God, not another. No, I recognised this one. Dr Cullen, from the local hospital. He had been there when Vera had her baby. He had escorted me out when I visited her. He attended one or two of the local balls with his wife and sometimes with her brother. He was supposed to be a miracle worker, a fabulous doctor. My father had sung his praises, but I thought that was to arrange a match between myself and the brother, even though he appeared to be younger than me. They irritated me, all three of them. They were so beautiful that they stole the attention that should have been focussed on me. The brother, Edward Masen, and the doctor were the only men I could call beautiful. Even Royce was merely handsome. The word beautiful in connection with a man seemed like it should be derogatory, but it wasn't when applied to them. I wished it was.

The doctor, the miracle worker, knelt down beside me and began his work. He had his bag with him; he opened it to find some bandages or some other medical equipment. No, no, he couldn't try to save my life. My life was worthless; I didn't want it any more. And it hurt when he touched me; his hands were so cold, and the bandages chafed my wounds. I wanted to tell him to leave me, or to kill me, but I couldn't even choke out the word "no!" I strived even harder to slow my breathing further. Would that count as suicide? I couldn't bring myself to care.

Then suddenly I was flying. Was I dead? Was my wish being granted? I must be, to be travelling so fast; it wasn't humanly possible. I couldn't see anything from the speed; only death could have wings so quick. But fresh horror flooded me as I realised that the pain hadn't stopped. No, it was worse, the wind was whipping against me, the snow seemed solid as I crashed through it, and my limbs flailed about, tearing my skin and muscles further apart. Surely death was supposed to relieve pain; was I going to hell? Was this my punishment for... for what? I was probably vain, I had definitely been jealous, but were these crimes of any young girl enough to condemn me to hell? I longed to cry out in fear.

The next thing to assault me was warmth. Against my frigid skin it felt like a fire, and yet it was relief of the most potent kind. I gasped in release as the cold was lost, and I found the strength to take in my surroundings. I was not flying anymore, and I was not dead. I wasn't sure how I knew; perhaps it was instinctive. Perhaps I recognised that in the afterlife, I would not be lying on a hard surface in what looked like a dining room. I was fast losing the coherency of thought to note even the colours of the walls, but still I realised I was in a dining room.

Dr Cullen was there again, though I wasn't lucid enough to realise that he must have carried me so quickly through the streets of Rochester. I did realise that he was still trying to patch up my wounds, to strap up my chest where it hurt so much to breathe. I did not realise that he was doing so at a speed I would have deemed impossible. I did not realise that his movements were becoming ever more frantic. The only realisation that managed to climb into my foggy brain was that I was truly dying now, exhausted by even the effort to register the doctor and the dining room, and in mere seconds I would be gone. I thanked God then that he was letting me go.

A murmur broke through my grateful prayers.

"I am so sorry."

The words didn't quite connect. They were meaningless sounds, lost in the greater scheme of my happy ever after. I was dead, or as close as I could be, and his words were merely echoes of a life already lost. The pain was dulling, fading like a gentle wave of water washing away footprints in the sand, and I was more grateful for this than I had ever been for anything. Death was my happy ending.

And then my world was ripped away from me.

Sharp, stabbing, tearing, my neck, my right wrist, my right ankle, my left ankle, my left wrist, quickly, in succession, pain, no, how could he do this to me? This doctor, why was he hurting me? Hurting me more, so much more, oh, oh, it hurt. Some part of my newly clarifying mind, made cogent through the pain, heard that I was screaming, and some part of my mind wondered how my throat wasn't too raw to make a noise at all. Within seconds, though, every part of me was given over to pain. Burning, fire, flames, heat, boiling, scorching, _kill me._ I was in too much agony to even contemplate giving voice to my demand, but the words were the only two that made sense for an eternity of torture. _Kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me._

Why was I not dead? My mind was looping back to a lifetime ago on the frozen street between Vera's house and mine: _There was surely no way that my body could sustain that amount of pain and still survive. How was my mind still thinking? How was I still registering the horror?_ Yet I was still thinking, still remembering. Truly alive, then? _I did not want to be alive._

"I'm sorry, so sorry..."

It was when the doctor's words finally managed to pierce my suffering that I realised I was still screaming, and the words I now could manage to scream were 'kill me'. I was thrashing wildly, and though each movement ripped at my body still further, how could I be unmoving? The desire to claw away my burning flesh, to scrape away the fire from my skin, kept me writhing. I tore my hand from the doctor's time and time again before I even grasped that he was trying to comfort me.

The pattern repeated for an interminable period of anguish, until I finally gained the strength, or the control, to stop screaming for seconds at a time, to give Dr Cullen a chance to explain.

"Miss Hale, I am truly sorry, but I have to tell you what's happening. There's no easy way to put this, but you are becoming a vampire. I am a vampire, along with my wife, Esme, and Edward, who you know as Esme's brother. That is why we are so pale, as you may have noticed. I'm sorry," he apologised. I must have screamed again. "You are changing because I bit you, in order to save your life. The pain is the venom, altering your body. It won't last, I promise. As vampires, we are immortal. We also have excessive speed and strength, but we do suffer from a thirst for blood. Esme, Edward and I abstain from the blood of humans, and I hope you will too, but I will not force you. We live on animal blood, and I won't lie, it is not as satisfying, but—"

My screams now were not solely from the pain. Was this doctor a madman? How could he be a vampire, how could I be becoming a vampire? Vampires were from myths, from stories to frighten children, the sort of tale that my mother had sniffed at and called sensationalist. No, this was ridiculous. Surely this was some level of Hell that I had sunk to, for whatever reason; I didn't much care why at that moment.

Dr Cullen carried on talking, and though I didn't attempt to listen, I heard. I think some part of me must have wanted to hear the sound of a voice, even if it was the voice of a lunatic. "Most of our kind live alone or in pairs. We are not as social as humans, as a general rule. It is also almost impossibly hard to remain near humans until you have learned to control your thirst, and that may take anything from a year to decades. We cannot sleep, or eat, or cry, or bear children. Your hair won't grow again. We can go out in the sunlight as it does not harm us, but it does mark us for what we are; our skin sparkles in direct sunlight."

He was reeling through a list of information as though from a textbook, and the more he spoke, the more I found myself believing in this madness. There were too many details for this to be the musings of a madman. The pain distracted me too much to let me concentrate on whether or not it was the truth.

"I'm sorry."

Those words were my constant companion; his apology sank into my brain and stayed there, fermenting and rotting and gathering mould. More than his blunt explanations, his guilt showed me that what he had done was wrong, and that he was subjecting me to a terrible fate. Though my cries had been wordless for a time, I began to scream out again:

"Kill me!"

This time, I added, "please!"

He said sorry yet again, and then for the first time told me why. "I can't kill you. I've sworn never to kill. I'm a doctor, you know that. I can't kill you, and when the pain has stopped, you may see this differently. You have a choice, when you wake up. You can leave us, if you so wish, and live whatever life you choose. You can feed on humans or animals. Or you can stay with us, with Esme, Edward and I, though that means you will have to choose to feed on animals. Of course, we would forgive any mistakes; we know just how hard it is to abstain. It might help you to understand that we choose to live this way as a matter of morals, of conscience. We don't want to murder innocents..."

I didn't give any thought to this supposed decision at all. No matter if vampires weren't social creatures, I was a social butterfly. I thrived on people surrounding me. I could not be alone.

Time had no meaning in this perpetual avalanche of pain, so I didn't know how long it had been when I heard two new people enter the room.

"Carlisle!"

"Esme... Edward..."

The wife and her brother. I had never spoken to either of them, not a single word, but I spoke to them now.

"Please! Please! Just kill me, kill me now!"

I felt as much as heard one of them rush closer, but she, Esme, Mrs Cullen, only ran her hand—cold like her husband's—over my arm. Petting me. Comforting me?

"I'm so sorry, dear, but I can't do that."

The words were familiar, the voice different. Softer. I warmed to this strange woman's voice more than to the doctor's, and part of me recognised that this was a change that would remain a fundamental feature of my personality for a long time to come. Men and women, I now believed, were entirely different species. More different than a vampire and a human ever could be.

"Her name is Rosalie, isn't it?"

"Yes, Rosalie Hale."

"Rosalie, dear," said Esme. "I know it hurts, I remember, but we're here for you, and it will all be over soon."

"Another one, Carlisle?"

This voice I had never heard, but I could place it simply by elimination. This was Edward, the other vampire, if this folly was to be believed, or just the other man.

"She had been attacked," Dr Cullen, Carlisle told him. He sounded... like he cared. But he had caused me so much pain... and then I heard his words.

I hadn't thought about the attack, barely at all since I had collapsed to the ground a lifetime ago on the cold pavement. Now, it all came flooding back to me and my memory was enough to stop me screaming. The horror was too much to be screamed. It was worse than this pain, surely, even if I couldn't comprehend that at the moment. Nothing could have been worse than when Royce, my Royce...

The images, sounds, sensations pelted me again, mixing and blending with my agony. And yet I had stopped my unearthly shrieks, for a while. For one thing, how could I equate my suffering of tonight to a mere scream? That would be degrading the torture I had suffered at my fiancé's hands. And for another, I knew now that it did no good to scream. No one stopped hurting you if you screamed. Not Roy, not his friends, not the doctor... And after a little, I could concentrate enough to hear a conversation.

"What were you thinking, Carlisle?" This was Edward. "Rosalie Hale?"

He was talking about me, and all of a sudden I hated this boy. He said my name like it was dirty, like he hated me already. He must know about me from the society columns of the local papers, but he had never met me, never spoken to me. How dare he judge me, this boy? This _man_? What right did any man have to judge me, after what had happened?

"I couldn't let her die," Dr Cullen said, and his voice was quiet. I wondered briefly how I could focus enough to register that detail. I was clinging to the voices, I knew, the proof that there were others in the world, that I wasn't suffering alone for eternity. "It was too much—too horrible, too much waste."

Horrible wasn't the word. Waste? No, not that either. There would have been no point to my life had I survived. There would have been nothing to waste.

"I know," Edward said, dismissively. So uncaring, such a _man_. He had no idea...

"It was too much waste," the doctor whispered. And yet I could hear. Why could I hear? "I couldn't leave her."

"Of course you couldn't," Esme said, still holding my hand, beside me. Not much time had passed while I was lost in my nightmares, then.

"People die all the time," Edward said. Was there no one he would save, then, if they were dying? For a moment, I forgot that I didn't want to live, and resented Edward because he didn't want me to live either. "Don't you think she's just a little recognisable, though? The Kings will have to put up a huge search—not that anyone suspects the fiend."

He wasn't speaking any more, he was growling. My emotions were going wild, I knew, because suddenly I felt a huge surge of gratitude to this insolent vampire-boy. He knew it was Royce and he was angry. No, fierce. He sounded like an animal, like a vampire, and I found it easy to feel exactly the same way. The rage and the vengeance burst through the damn of fear and horror, completely taking over and I knew at that moment that I desperately wanted to kill Royce King. No, I wanted to kill him and all his friends, the evil creatures who attacked me.

I thought I heard a murmur, "She wants to kill him," but it was probably only my turbulent mind, repeating what I already knew.

"What are we going to do with her?" Edward said disgustedly, and I forgot I had ever felt the same way as him. There he was, judging me again, this _man_.

I heard a deep sigh, and I could hear that it was the doctor, on the other side of the room. I could hear where he was standing? "That's up to her, of course. She may want to go her own way."

My own way? Alone? With no one to ever talk to, to smile at, who would smile at me? I couldn't exactly define why I needed people so much, but I did. I needed their love, their acceptance, their admiration. I needed someone to want me in some way. I could not survive without people. I could not leave. I resigned myself in that very instant to living with the doctor and his wife, and even with Edward, though I hated him already. There was no way I would leave them, at least not until I found someone better.

It was just as I was deciding this that I began to feel the tips of my fingers to be fingers again, rather than mere vessels for pain. They still hurt beyond belief, but they were recognisable as parts of my body. The pain was dulling. Anticipation and joy swept through me like a hurricane, obliterating the remaining anger and fear of abandonment, at least for now. I waited eagerly to regain control, to be myself again, a living creature rather than a charred husk. I could hear my own heartbeat, now, thumping out a regular rhythm, and I used it to count down, to measure time gone by, to claw myself forwards into the future.

Then my heart stopped beating.

Oh God.

Was I truly dead?

I remembered now all the thoughts that had plagued me earlier, all the fervent wishes to die because my life had no purpose. Now, I wasn't so sure. I was curious, tremendously curious as to this whole notion of vampirism. I was fascinated by these people who claimed to be mythical creatures. There was a purpose there, albeit a vague, unimportant one: to find out the truth. And then there was the other aim: to kill Royce King. I didn't yet know if I could kill a man in cold blood, or even in hot, impassioned blood, but the draw was inescapable.

Hence I didn't want to die. Not yet. Not quite yet.

* * *

A/N: Anyone who has an idea for a name for this story, please tell me. Back when it was a oneshot, Understanding worked, but I'm not sure now...


	3. This is not me

_A/N: Summary: Rosalie wakes up._

* * *

The first thing I noticed wasn't what I saw, or heard. The first thing I noticed was that the pain was gone, blissfully gone, from everywhere but my throat. I was too relieved at the absence of agony to worry overmuch about my throat, though. It could go on hurting for all I cared. I had other things to focus on.

The second thing I noticed was that I was not alone.

Mrs Cullen, Esme, the doctor's wife, was still sitting beside me. I flicked a glance at her, catalogued her delicate beauty as I always did when I saw a young woman, then brought my attention more closely to her face. She was staring at me, concern evident in her eyes, and her brow showed a slight degree of worry. It was a shame; the creases in her forehead would stop a person from noticing her gorgeous golden eyes.

Edward Masen, the young boy, Mrs Cullen's brother, was standing across the room, watching me carefully. His face never moved; he was trying to control his reactions to me. Well, many men had tried and failed to do that in the past. I let my gaze move past him, feigning disinterest. He truly held little interest for me right now.

Dr Cullen was standing just behind his wife, but he looked like he was uneasy, for some reason. Every now and again his eyes—which were darker than those of the other two, almost black—flickered to her and then to me. His face, too, showed concern and compassion, and belatedly I realised that he and his wife were both concerned for me and afraid of me.

Well, I didn't need their concern. Their fear, though... I wasn't sure. I put that aside to deal with later.

The third thing I noticed was that I was not breathing.

"I'm dead," I stated aloud, and immediately realised that this could not be true. I had just moved my mouth, proving I had a physical form and I suddenly realised that I could feel. I could feel the air moving over my lips as I spoke, though I still had not taken a breath, and I could feel that I was lying on a hard surface, and I could feel that my throat was hurting. I cursed myself for being an idiot but before I could say anything else, Esme was speaking.

"No, you're not, dear. Carlisle saved you."

"Actually, that's debatable," Edward muttered.

That was when I made the mistake of breathing.

I was totally unprepared for the sheer searing agony in my throat. It drove out all thought, all sensation other than the pain, the _thirst_. I didn't know how I recognised this alien torture as thirst, but I knew I had to drink. I wasn't thinking at all as I moved for the first time, leaping off the dining room table, leaving the three startled others behind me as I pelted for the door and darted into another room. I didn't realise I had entered a disused kitchen, I didn't notice that I had crushed the flimsy wooden door in my attempt to enter, I certainly didn't register that I was moving at a speed impossible to human beings or that I was now possessed of unnatural strength. The only thing I knew was that I had to drink. And it wasn't until after it was drained dry that I realised I had just attacked, killed and drunk the blood of a deer.

I was crouching on the stone kitchen floor, clutching the carcass of a doe with clean, unblemished hands, digging my intact nails into its cooling flesh and I could taste the tang of blood on my perfect, unspoiled lips. I could see every separate hair in perfect distinction on the wretched creature's neck; I could hear the breathing of three people behind me and the cry of a night bird a mile or more from here. I was not dead and this could not be a dream. My emotions were in turmoil: horror, fear, anger, confusion, rage, terror, thirst, grief.

Grief? Yes, grief, for the life I had lost. Because ever since Royce had torn my jacket from my shaking form, I had known that the innocent, carefree life of Rosalie Lillian Hale was over. Now, it only became clearer. I whirled around to see what I already knew: the doctor and his family had followed me in. I hissed at them like a cat in the street, purely instinctively.

"Rosalie," the doctor began gently, but I cut him off violently.

"What right have you to call me that? I am Miss Hale to you."

The words were those of a person; the voice was that of an animal. My own voice, I knew, but feral, raw, on the edge of a growl. I didn't care. I sounded like a monster, then I could show them what they'd done to me, what they were. For I knew this was their fault, whatever _this_ was, this _thing_ that set my throat on fire and made me kill in cold blood without thinking.

Why was there even a deer in their kitchen in the first place? A large, live deer. Why?

"You knew this would happen," I concluded aloud. "What have you done to me?"

The doctor shared a glance with Edward, who nodded briefly. They were judging me, then. What right did they have?

"Miss Hale, what do you remember of what I told you while... while you were in pain?"

"Everything," I answered immediately, then drew back in horror. It was true, I remembered every second since the fire began with perfect clarity. Even those moments when I hadn't heard talking, I remembered not hearing anything. Even when my mental agonising drowned out the voices, I remembered not listening. Infeasible, surely. And yet it was true. And I remembered every word I had heard.

"You're mad," I stated. "A lunatic. It can't be true."

"I'm afraid it is," he said softly. "You are a vampire."

"N—" I started to say, but I knew it was true, really. Look at me, look at what I'd just done. "No," I said again, but it was quieter now, an expression of loss rather than of anger or denial. The way I couldn't predict my emotions was beginning to scare me. I started to register the changes in my mind, the volatility of my flitting thoughts, the maelstrom of emotion that seemed to be constantly whirling through me.

Esme started to move towards me, but then Edward spoke. "I wouldn't," he said quickly, in a low voice. Somehow I knew that I never would have heard him... before.

"Why?" I snapped at him. "You're just like me, aren't you? I'm no danger to you, am I? You could stop me—"

And suddenly I was terrified again.

"Don't touch me," I whispered, but the whisper still managed to sound fierce. "Don't, don't."

Dr Cullen turned once again to Edward, asking a silent question with his eyes. Why? What did the boy know of me?

"She's thinking of the attack," he said. His voice was cold and certain; this wasn't a guess. He was right, of course.

"How do you know that?" I demanded quickly, in a strong voice completely unlike my previous muttering. Once again, I threw myself off balance with the abrupt change to my mood. Without giving him a chance to answer, I carried on speaking. "Why can't I control what I feel? What have you done to me? This isn't me, _what have you done_?"

"Miss Hale, why don't we sit down in the front room and we can discuss all this," the doctor pleaded.

"No, thank you, I'm perfectly comfortable right here," I replied icily. It was true; though I remained half-crouched in a defensive pose, I could feel no strain in my muscles or joints. "Tell me everything. Start from the beginning."

They stood there, beautiful beasts, and for the first time I saw that they too were standing in a defensive formation, the doctor in front, the boy on his right shoulder and the woman on his left. They truly were scared of me. The thrill of power that came hand in hand with that realisation was both invigorating and slightly terrifying. I had never had my own power before.

"We are vampires," the doctor stated bluntly. Gently, but bluntly. "We are immortal, though we don't have a heartbeat or a need to breathe."

Reflexively, I put a hand to my chest and felt nothing but the rise and fall of my ribcage.

"Our hair doesn't grow; nor do our nails. We don't age in any way. We have perfect memories, supernatural strength and speed and enhanced senses, as I'm sure you've noticed. We can't sleep, or become ill, or digest food. We... can't bear children."

The pause was miniscule, but I wondered as to the reason for it. Was this something that was difficult for him or did he think it would be difficult for me? I also thought about his use of the first person plural, making each blow less forceful by spreading the impact. This list was rehearsed; he had done this before. For Edward? Esme?

All of this passed through my mind in less than the blink of an eye. Then I flew at him.

Before I reached him, though, Edward was there, blocking my path. I ploughed into him with all my strength, instinctively thinking that he would be stronger than me. After all, he was a man; I was only a weak, feeble woman. It was therefore to my immense surprise that I threw him off his feet, catapulting him backwards into the doctor, and we all three ended up on the floor of the entrance hall, having condemned the kitchen wall to a fate as a splintered mess.

"Can't bear children?" I screeched. "Don't age? What kind of an existence is this? What _hell_ are you forcing me into?"

"Would you stop, please!" Edward said from underneath me. The words were polite but his voice was seething with barely controlled anger.

Suddenly, I realised that my body was pressed flush against his as I screamed into his face and tried to hurt them both in any way I could. Esme had her arms round my waist and was trying in vain to pull me off them, but she didn't need to. As soon as I realised that I was lying atop of two young men, I was on the other side of the kitchen, having slammed into the wall and caused a little trickle of dust to fall in my hair. I cowered like a child, curled up into a protective ball, petrified.

"Don't touch me," I said again, but this time I did not sound fierce at all."

"It's alright, dear, they won't," Esme promised.

"We won't hurt you," the doctor echoed. I wanted to believe him, but I wouldn't let myself.

"You're safe," Edward assured me. "Even if we wanted to harm you—which we don't—we couldn't. You're stronger than us, at least for now."

"Why?" I asked shortly.

It was the doctor who answered. "You're what we call a newborn. For the first year of this life you'll be stronger than the rest of us, but your bloodlust will also be much worse and you will need to avoid humans at all cost."

Newborn? I certainly felt like a child, with my wild impulsive emotions and utter ignorance as to this strange new world that it seemed I had always lived in.

"Your emotions are part of that," Edward confirmed. "You'll get used to it though."

I found that hard to believe.

"You will," he repeated.

Whenever he spoke, Edward's voice was totally composed, and more than a little cold. Why, I didn't know and didn't much care. Suspicion was clouding my mind.

He hesitated before nodding his head.

I let out a guttural moan and my face collapsed into a defeated grimace.

"Edward?" Esme asked, and I understood now why everyone turned to him.

"She figured out my talent," he replied in a low voice.

"You're taking everything away from me," I complained. I knew I sounded petulant, but what did it matter? They had already termed me a babe. "My whole life, it's gone."

"That's not true," Esme said in a low voice that was clearly meant to comfort me, but I flared up again, standing up to look her in the eye.

"How so? I was going to get married this weekend. I was going to have a beautiful wedding and I was going to live in a beautiful house, and I was going to have beautiful children, one day. Well, I can hardly get married now, can I?" I asked bitterly.

The doctor and his wife exchanged confused glances, but before they could question my resentment, Edward intervened.

"She's talking in the abstract," he informed them.

"And can you stay out of my head!"

He shook his head. "I can't help it. For me, it's just like hearing you talking; I can't avoid it."

I groaned.

"It's not that bad," Esme said soothingly.

"What: Edward or being a vampire?" I asked sullenly.

"Both. Edward doesn't misuse his gift and he won't tell us your thoughts. And this life, it's not so terrible."

I raised an eyebrow at her, but she smiled.

"I've got married, haven't I?" she reminded me, sharing a glance with the doctor that was entirely saturated with love. It almost sickened me as I thought of my fiancé, but with a supreme amount of effort, I kept my dancing thoughts from the kind of love he had forced on me.

Edward smiled. That shocked me enough to distract me entirely.

"And come with me," Esme said. "I want to show you something."

The smile disappeared. "Esme," Edward said warningly, but she shook her head.

"I trust her. She won't hurt me."

"Of course I won't!" I protested, but Edward fixed me with a piercing look.

"Your emotions?" he reminded me.

"I won't hurt her," I repeated forcefully.

Esme decided not to wait for him to agree with me and led me out of the now ruined kitchen, up the stairs to what I assumed was the master bedroom. She paused before she opened the door.

"You should be aware that your eyes are red," she told me gently. "They won't be like that forever; they'll turn golden in a year if you decide to live on animals, less if you're careful."

"Of course I'm going to live on animals!" I said, shocked, repeating her words rather than admitting out loud that I was going to be drinking their blood. "I will not be some sort of savage beast!"

She smiled again, almost grinned, and I couldn't help but smile back. Though it was her husband who had condemned me to this life, though she was a vampire, though she hadn't killed me when I asked, I was beginning to love Esme Cullen. She had already proven that she trusted me, and she had spent the majority of her time since I had woken up trying to comfort me, unlike the men. And of course there was the simple fact that she was a woman. I still wouldn't admit it, but I already knew that I would trust women far more easily forevermore.

Esme opened the door and guided me into her bedroom, to in front of her wardrobe which bore a full length mirror. I stopped and stared.

I was wearing a pale blue dress that Esme must have put me in while I was unaware. It didn't quite fit, but I barely noticed. My reflection was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. No, it was beyond beautiful. I was ravishing, exquisite, breathtaking... I didn't have enough adjectives, superlatives, to describe myself. I marvelled even more when I remembered my injuries; I had visualised my flapping eyelid, my bleeding nose, my torn lips and grieved for them, but now they were beyond beautiful. They were perfect. I was perfect. Even my eyes, burning scarlet, were glowing like rubies in front of flames. I was...

I was me. Rosalie Lillian Hale, the most beautiful woman in Rochester, in New York. I was still me. When I saw myself in the mirror, I accepted what I'd been given and resigned myself to it, because I was Rosalie Hale, and I knew I could survive whatever was thrown at me.

Then, as I went to turn away, my engagement ring caught my eye. I had thought it beautiful before and I suppose it still was: a blood red ruby surrounded my clusters of white diamonds, set in a sparkling gold band. Now, though, it made me think of an eye, my own eye. Watching. They say diamonds are forever; well, I had my own forever now. I took off the ring, watching it as it watched me, and then deliberately, slowly, I placed it on the fourth finger of my right hand. It would remind me of another engagement to uphold: an engagement between Royce King and death.

* * *

_A/N: Right, I need help. In the next chapter, the Cullen family will have to leave Rochester. At this point, I have to curse my Britishness and my utter hatred for Geography, because I have no idea where to send them. Any ideas would be truly gratefully received. If you can put them anywhere near Atlanta, that would be brilliant - bear in mind that they'll be staying away from humans for a year anyway, so the sun is less of a problem. I just need somewhere utterly deserted. Thank you in advance!_


	4. Uncontrolled and monstrous

When Esme led me back downstairs, having entirely missed the murderous glint in my eye, it was to see Edward staring at me with an unreadable expression. Too late, I realised he would have heard everything I'd just resolved.

_Don't say a word_, I glared at him.

He shook his head. I was slightly surprised by this show of solidarity, but I quickly dismissed it, especially since Dr Cullen was standing there ever so politely, with his hands clasped in front of him, smiling ever so slightly, as if he were trying not to scare me. That probably was his aim, I reflected, since I'd behaved so pathetically before. The scorn for myself that quickly flooded my mind threatened to take me off balance but I was growing used to my volatile emotions and, with a little effort, I managed to control myself.

"Miss Hale," Dr Cullen began. "I'm afraid I must tell you—"

What now? What was he going to tell me that he did not wish to inflict on me? What worse could come?

"—that we must leave Rochester."

For a moment I was relieved, then I was shocked, then I was hurt, then I was confused, and then I felt a strange mixture of all four.

"Why?" I asked shortly.

"You can't stay anywhere near where any humans may be, not for the first year at least. The bloodlust you felt for the deer earlier, that will be a thousand times worse if you smell a human."

A pulse of girlish rebellion flared in me. I had no wish to leave the only home I had ever known, to completely sever my ties to what I could not yet think of as my human life. Surely the bloodlust would not be impossible to withstand?

"No one can withstand that, not so young," Edward said quietly.

"Will you get out of my head?" I snapped at him.

He didn't answer but left the room. Once again too late, I realised that had I not answered, it would not have sounded to the others as though I was considering risking temptation. It would have been a natural addition to the conversation. Instead of feeling grateful to him, though, I felt furious at myself for not realising this and taking advantage of it.

"He can't help it you know, dear," Esme told me gently.

"And I can't help but hate the invasion of my privacy," I retorted.

The glance the doctor and his wife shared would have spoken volumes had I been looking. As it was, I was distracted by the thought of Edward and his gift which could seemingly be most convenient as well as inconvenient.

"So where are we going?" I asked abruptly, tearing my thoughts from him.

"We thought perhaps we might head up to Denali, in Alaska," Esme said. "There are others there, who perhaps could help you adjust."

I instinctively recoiled from the idea. More? I was only just adjusting to being in the presence of these three vampires! And I had already shamed myself in the Cullens' eyes; I would not do so in front of others if I could help it at all.

Suddenly, Edward returned. I had heard him packing something, somewhere upstairs, but as with the emotions, I was growing used to hearing too much and ignoring what was unnecessary.

"Or we could go south, somewhere utterly deserted. If we're staying out of the public eye anyway, we could even go somewhere sunny."

Saving me yet again from having to explain what I was thinking. I felt a surge of irritation once more. I did not want saving. I had not wanted it when I lay dying; I certainly did not want it now.

"Which would you prefer?" Dr Cullen asked me courteously.

His careful manners unnerved me.

"What does it matter what I think?" I asked defensively.

"You're part of this family too," he said softly. "You matter just as much as anyone else."

I did not know how to react to this open acceptance. I didn't know whether to feel constrained by it, to feel welcomed by it, to feel reassured or scared, so I ignored it entirely.

"Where in the south?" I questioned.

"There's the house in the Great Smoky Mountains," Esme suggested. "There are no humans around there."

I frowned. "The Great Smoky Mountains? Aren't they a popular tourist destination?"

"Yes, but our house is well off the beaten trail," Dr Cullen told me.

"There are good hunting grounds there," Edward offered.

I wasn't sure whether he was arguing his case or mine now.

"What do you think?" Esme asked me.

Still I did not understand why I mattered. I wasn't even a woman, I was a girl, and a ruined girl at that. From what I understood, I was uprooting this family from their lives and putting them to much inconvenience generally. Who cared what I thought about anything? But still, they were asking me. "Yes. I'd like that, I think."

"I hope you do," Esme smiled, and just like that the matter was settled.

"Esme built the house," Dr Cullen informed me.

"Oh, stop it," she chastised him lovingly. "You and Edward did just as much work as me."

"You designed it," Edward said. "You deserve the most credit."

I listened to this exchange in utter bemusement. Not thirty seconds past, I had been bemoaning my status as a female, and here was one who had designed and helped build a house! Did this bizarre family pay attention to any conventions of society?

"Not many," Edward allowed.

"Would you stop that!"

We left sooner rather than later; I was already thirsty, though I tried vehemently to deny it. Edward put pay to that, which irritated me. The idea of simply running across pretty much the whole of the United States was an odd one, no matter how I tried to remind myself that I wouldn't get tired and that I was faster than a car. The ideas simply weren't compatible with what I had held to be true for nineteen years, so in the end I just stopped thinking about it.

The others didn't pack much, only what could be carried in bags, though that was considerably more than a human could carry. I noticed that Edward's bags were mainly full of records rather than clothes and the doctor too lacked clothes for the sake of books. For my part, Edward was able to sneak into my family home and take enough of my clothes to last me a good while. I wondered what my family would make of the disappearances. Most likely they would never notice: I had so many clothes, and they would be preoccupied with my own unannounced absence.

Dr Cullen had sent letters to the hospital informing them of a family emergency in Madison, Wisconsin, and so explaining that he would not be returning. He could have stayed to sort matters out personally, but I could not have stayed much longer and he didn't want to let me go off with only his wife and Edward. He didn't say as much, but a fool could have guessed it.

As we left, I was told to hold my breath and not to speak if I could help it. The sensation felt more unnatural than almost anything else I had experienced, for all of it was natural for what I was, except for this. Still, I kept to my word and took not a single breath for miles on end, running on and on, ever going south.

Esme said that they wouldn't sell the house.

"Property is a good, solid investment," she chattered while we were running. She told me of her interest in architecture as we went, to keep my mind occupied in pleasant things, I thought. I couldn't respond without a breath, so it was more of a monologue than a conversation, but it did keep me distracted as I marvelled over the way she seemed totally free from the rules of the society that I was so used to.

The running itself would have exhilarated me if I was still innocent and naive, and I couldn't help but be enthralled by the sense that I could push my legs still further if I wasn't keeping pace with Esme. The wind on my face should by all rights have been freezing and forceful, but instead it seemed refreshing, and I almost didn't mind that it teased my already tangled hair into a further mess. I would have time enough to brush it later.

Edward did not speak to me as we ran; in fact he didn't speak at all except to snap out a warning of humans nearby. Dr Cullen chimed in with conversation occasionally, but Edward remained as silent as a ghost. Every so often he would hear something, a stray thought I supposed, and change direction just slightly. We all followed him blindly. I thought it was strange that he withdrew into himself like this; I had never known anyone like him, who would not share his thoughts with anyone. In the world I came from every passing fancy was spoken, and the only care taken was of which ears might hear it. Between my girlfriends, my parents and the social circles of Rochester, my entire personality was spread. I couldn't conceive a life where there was no one to talk to, or where I would not want to talk to anyone. Then I remembered my own dark secret, and realised that for the first time in my life there was something which I could and would not share with a soul. And yet, Edward knew. Once again, I decided it would be horrid to be him.

After a few hours, we paused for my first hunt. I had been allowed to breathe again as soon as we had passed out of the suburbs of Rochester, but I was constantly waiting for Edward to tell me to stop because he heard a human somewhere too close for comfort. It was not until we got halfway to Pennsylvania that they decided it was safe for me to let go of my tenuous control and hunt for the very first time. To begin with, I had no idea what on earth I was supposed to do; I was shocked when they told me to give in to my instincts.

"I do not want to be a monster!" I said.

Esme looked sympathetically at me. "I know you don't believe me, but it isn't monstrous. You could almost say that this is more humane than many human methods of killing animals."

"And you will find it easier if you try not to think too much like a human," Dr Cullen added.

I felt ridiculously self-conscious, but I knew I couldn't just stand there. I had to do this, and I had to do it before my thirst got unbearable. Finally, I just decided to do as they said. With a burst of determination I closed my eyes and set to listening to the forest, to smelling it, to feeling it. I got a sense that the whole landscape was alive somehow, and it was listening to me as I listened to it. I felt the way that the smaller creatures shrank away from me. They knew I was a monster. Well then, so be it.

Flaring into life, I exploded through the trees, silent as an arrow, faster than a bullet, for a moment not going anywhere in particular, and then following an order that could not be disobeyed. There was blood somewhere near, and I had to have it. That was the only truth in the world, and had I been human enough to acknowledge that, it would have disgusted me. But I was in no way human at that moment in time, I was purely an animal, a monster, a vampire, and it felt perfectly natural to be tearing through a forest, desperate to murder, frantic with thirst, drowning in bloodlust.

It was not until after I had fed and the bloodlust had dissipated that I dropped another dry carcass in revulsion and saw Edward, watching me.

* * *

_A/N: Thank you to everyone who suggested new homes for the family! For those who aren't aware, the reason I chose the Great Smokies is because the area is densely populated with black bears, wild boars and (in the 1930s, but not now) mountain lions! Add to that the fact that there is a mountain called Wolf Mountain, which is relatively near to Bear Creek, and you get the perfect setting for a vegetarian newborn retreat. I was going to put the end of their journey in this chapter, but if I did that, I'd never finish. Much better to post now than make you wait even more._


	5. Stories

_A/N: I hate to devote these little notes to apologies, but I feel I owe you one. Sorry I'm horrendously late. Still, I'm posting now._

* * *

"What are you doing?" I snapped at him.

I wasn't sure why I reacted quite so violently. It had something to do with the way I had been so utterly out of control while hunting, so exposed. I had bared for all the world what I truly was, and I hated it. What sane person would want to be a killer?

"Watching out for you," he answered, choosing to respond to my voice rather than my thoughts for once.

Dr Cullen and Esme came through the trees then, emerging either side of Edward. I stood self-consciously, dropping my latest victim and brushing my dress off without looking away from my audience.

"Well done!" Dr Cullen congratulated me. It was totally at odds with what I was feeling, but still a small part of me reacted favourably to the praise.

"What for?" I asked, my voice stiff with the conflict. Theoretically, I knew that I would have to do this in order to survive, so it was imperative that I could... hunt... successfully, and I knew that this was something of a milestone, but I couldn't reconcile the act of killing an innocent creature with approval, let alone congratulations.

"You did very well," he informed me. "You've kept yourself remarkable neat."

I frowned, looked down and shrieked with horror. My dress, admittedly the plainest one that Edward had retrieved for me, was ruined. Bloodstains spattered the bodice and the skirt had dozens, if not hundreds of holes and tears where I must have caught it on trees and vegetation.

"It's alright!" Esme said. "You'll get better with practise. And you're far better than I was on my first hunt—I really was a sight."

I didn't know which disturbed me more: the notion that I could have looked worse or the idea of practise. To save myself the bother of deciding, I clapped a hand to my mouth and twisted my head to examine the full extent of the damage. Then I began to run my fingers through my hair, feeling still more horrified every time another twig tumbled to the ground.

Still, we couldn't stop forever (my mind refused to entertain the possibility that actually, we could) and I didn't even consider changing my clothing out there, so we pressed on. Perhaps inevitably, it began to rain.

"Oh dear," Esme muttered, hugging a bag full of clothes to her chest to prevent them getting wet.

I was a little more exuberant in my protestations. "I hate the rain. It's unpredictable, cold, wet, and always ruins any outdoor events."

Such as a wedding. I wasn't entirely sure how many days had passed since the last day of my life, but I knew that the date I had set must be soon. I didn't ask.

"Though on the bright side, it provides us with water," Dr Cullen quipped.

"Are you always so irritatingly cheerful, Doctor?"

"Call me Carlisle."

It was strange, how I naturally referred to Esme and Edward by their Christian names, but I persisted in labelling the doctor by his title. Then again, not so strange: one did not refer to a man by his given name unless he was either a family member or a close friend. Likewise, I had insisted on him calling me Miss Hale. Hearing how casually he dismissed the social law that confined us to surnames, it suddenly seemed very petty.

"And no, actually, though when you've lived as long as I have you tend to gain a different perspective on things."

That piqued my curiosity, as he must have known it would. "How old are you, Carlisle?"

He smiled, and I almost winced. I didn't want to be close to him. He was a man, and worse, he had changed me, although I would not truly hate him for that until later.

"Almost exactly three centuries," he answered with an affected nonchalance, but my eyes still widened in shock.

"Show off," Esme admonished him fondly.

"Would you like to hear my story, Miss Hale?" he offered. "I'm glad to say it does have a happy ending."

"So far," Edward murmured somewhere ahead of us. I wasn't sure how much cynicism he actually meant to betray with those two words.

I hesitated for a fraction of a second, then decided that it would have to happen sooner or later: "Call me Rosalie."

There, it was done. I had designated myself as part of this unconventional family group. Carlisle and Esme beamed, but before they had a chance to comment, I continued speaking: "And yes, I would be very interested to hear your story."

It covered the best part of an hour, in which time the cursed rain eased off, describing first what little he remembered of his childhood, followed by his transformation and his self-imposed starvation before embarking on a tale worthy of any dreaming fantasist, comprising journeys across far-off lands, meetings with aristocratic and extraordinary people, and his various studies. It seemed there must be nothing this man did not know, and I remarked on that, more than a little jealous.

He laughed. "Ah, but many of these things I learned over a century ago. In many areas I'm sorely out of date, for example with the workings of a motor car. When they first arrived they were so precarious and unreliable that I didn't even consider obtaining one, and then later they were never as practical or as fast as simply running. Now that I've been living in cities and towns, however, a car is almost a necessity, especially as so many own one. Fortunately Edward has a fascination with them or I should never have figured out how to change a wheel, let alone drive one, yet I spent a spell building carriages for the gentry when I was perhaps seventy years old."

Eventually his tale brought him to Chicago at the end of the Great War, and here he paused.

"Tell her what you like," Edward called back. "There's nothing sacred."

Despite his words, Esme gave a delicate shudder. I would later learn that she hated to think of Edward's family dying one by one and leaving him alone in the world, but for now I took it as distaste at Edward being changed. It was not the best way for me to think of this existence, especially combined with my initial pessimistic reaction to it, but Edward did not bother to correct my interpretation. Maybe he had run on ahead, out of earshot.

Carlisle frowned. "As you may have guessed, that was when I found Edward. It was the time of the influenza epidemic."

I remembered this, in the way that a three year old child remembers anything, in vague flashes of images and sensations, and later in the tales that my parents had told me. My father had a chronic fear of illness, so he had confined us all to the house for what my brother George said seemed an eternity. He had been six at the time, and we had driven each other wild in our isolation.

Abruptly, I wondered where George was now. At the bank with my father? Organising my funeral? Would he be assisting with the search for my body? And then: what did George look like? I knew he shared my sky-blue eyes and ivory complexion, and I knew his hair was darker than mine, more like honey than gold, but these were just facts. I tried to picture his face and achieved only a vague, murky image. Already, I had forgotten my brother.

"He was dying in the hospital where I was working. I had been feeling lonely for decades, but I could never justify to myself turning another person into a creature like me. But he was alone in the world; his parents had already succumbed to the disease."

I had never been close to my parents across the bridge of our separate generations, but they were always perfect parents and I was always a perfect daughter. Of course there were times when I chafed at their restrictions on my free time or wished I could attend dinner parties that they had forbidden to me, but my father, also called George, had worked very hard at the bank to provide for us and my mother, Carol, put his wealth to good use, furnishing our home in a chic, fashionable style, acquiring the most stylish of clothing for us, paying for the best education money could buy for George and sending me to a piano tutor, a singing tutor, ballroom dancing lessons. There was nothing more I could ask from them.

"So I took him back to my apartment and changed him. We left as soon as he was able and, after a year of acclimatising to his thirst and his gift, we resumed the lifestyle I had led before, moving across the country."

"What relationship did you claim?" I asked abruptly. Of course I knew by now that Edward was most certainly not Esme's brother, and thinking of my own family had prompted me to wonder what role I would play in this one.

And yet, I didn't want to ask. Not so bluntly, at least. I didn't want to claim I was a sister when I had a true brother still living; I would not be an orphaned protégée when my parents were mourning me worlds away.

"As a matter of fact, we didn't," Carlisle admitted. "Edward disliked crowds, unused as he was to his gift, and tended to avoid people altogether."

This made sense, but did not answer any of my unspoken musings. I let it drop, knowing I had a year's grace before we entered society again.

"Almost three years after I found Edward, we were staying in Ashland, Wisconsin."

At this juncture, he glanced at his wife and I knew this was now Esme's story. Unlike Edward, she did not leave the telling of her tale to Carlisle but stepped up to the challenge herself, although she paused before beginning.

"Like Edward, I was dying when Carlisle found me. Unlike Edward, I was dying of my own volition."

I stopped, and they ran on a few paces in the instant before they stopped with me. Esme was waiting for me to speak, but for a moment I couldn't. The words stayed restive on my tongue even as my lips parted in shock, horror, and worst of all, in remembrance.

Suicide was a sin. I knew that as surely as I knew that murder was wrong. It was for God to create and end life, through whatever medium he so chose, and to change that was to defy Him, and to presume that you knew better. Even if Esme had been prevented from taking her own life, she had been wrong to try to do so, no matter the circumstances.

Another part of my mind wondered what those circumstances were, and how terrible her life must have been.

Yet another train of thought reminded me that, not five days ago, I too had utterly given up on life and that, really I had no right to judge her.

Gently, she took my arm and tugged me onwards.

"Why?" I asked.

Her face was composed, but I could see that she was hiding some violent emotion. "My baby died. He was only three days old."

This threw up a thousand further questions and assumptions, the most pressing being: "But your husband!"

She actually flinched, as though I had slapped her.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly.

"He's not dead," she said, correcting my instinctive presumption. "He's still alive, back in Ohio somewhere."

I glanced at Carlisle now, utterly confused. If she was still married, then how were they together? In what capacity? Clearly they were together; it was obvious in every movement of their bodies, in every look and word that they adored each other. Furthermore, why was Esme so upset at the mention of her human husband? Did she feel guilty at leaving him behind, or finding another?

I didn't want to pose any of these highly personal and probing questions. Where on earth was Edward when his gift might actually be useful?

Carlisle stepped in. "We're not legally married, in the same was that Edward is not actually Esme's brother. We feel that it doesn't really matter."

The implications of that, I decided to ignore. Hadn't I already accepted that they were highly unconventional?

"I walked out on my husband when I was three months pregnant," Esme confessed, but she didn't sound ashamed. Hurt, yes, haunted, yes, but not ashamed. "I'm sorry, I'm not doing this very well; I've never had to explain this to anymore other than Carlisle," she apologised.

"Didn't Edward—"

"He refused to tell him anything. Sometimes he seems so much older than seventeen; he realised that I had to tell him myself. I needed that."

They shared a smile, his protective, hers grateful, then she turned back to me.

"I was married to a man named Charles Evenson when I was twenty-two," she told me.

I noticed that Carlisle's face twitched into a frown at his name.

Esme took a ragged breath before continuing. "I didn't love him, and he didn't love me. It was a marriage of social gain for our families rather than anything else."

Again, a pause. I felt distinctly uncomfortable.

"Suffice to say it was not a happy marriage. He was..."

She didn't need to go on. I could see in my mind Roy's face as he ripped my dress out the way, as he pushed me to the ground; I couldn't taste the drink on his breath as he forced his mouth against mine, cutting off my scream; I could feel him...

"Rosalie!"

Too late, I realised that my lungs were working at the speed of an express train, that my eyes were clamped shut and my arms wrapped around me like a shield.

"Sorry!" I gasped, frantically trying to control myself. I hated being out of control; I was pathetic.

Esme gathered me in her arms, ant to my own surprise I found myself hugging her back, heedless of the blood which I was probably smearing all over her travelling dress.

"Don't be sorry," she whispered fiercely. "Don't ever be sorry. It's been over a decade for me, less than a week for you. I'll help you. We all will."

There, in the middle of nowhere, I learnt three things. The first was what it was like to cry when you had no tears. The second was what it was like to love without a beating heart. The third was that it was possible to find a reason to live as a vampire, even if there had been none as a human.

* * *

_A/N: Again, an apology, this time that we haven't reached our destination. However, we'll be there next chapter. And another note: the characters might seem a little out of character. Can I point out that this is the first time they've had to deal with an outsider joining their family. Esme in particular has not dealt with her past as well as she has by the time of Twilight because she hasn't been confronted with something like this before. She's never had to really explain herself to anyone besides Carlisle, and he's a completely different case. Ooh, I want to write that... Anyone want me to write that?_


	6. Musician

When we finally arrived I was not impressed, but I couldn't say that. Not to Esme. The problem was that I was a city girl, born and bred. Log cabins were simply not my style, no matter how charming they appeared or how tastefully they were furnished. It was far too rustic for me. Still, it didn't stop me from wondering:

"You built this?"

Esme smiled, looking down. I think that, had she been able, she would have blushed. "With Carlisle and Edward, yes."

Carlisle came up behind her and wrapped an arm loosely round her waist. "We've been through this, Esme. You designed it—"

"—therefore that gives me license to forget all courteous modesty," she teased.

He shook his head and laughed at her, but there was no malice in the sound. Rather, he sounded as if he loved her. They were so like newlyweds, caught up in the first flush of the enchantment that is young love. If their stories were to be believed, they had been married for a decade, yet they still looked at each other as if they couldn't quite believe the other were real.

I turned away.

Inside, I was further surprised at the size of the place. Alongside two reception rooms, there were four bedrooms and a room designated as a bathroom, though of course there was no running water.

"But there's a hot spring just a mile out to the east," Esme assured me. "It only takes a couple of trips to fill a bath."

"She thinks of everything," Carlisle assured me.

Despite their blatant adoration of each other, I found myself becoming more and more comfortable with both Carlisle and Esme. It was strange; I hadn't expected to feel so natural around Carlisle especially, only days after... but I did. Perhaps I was reacting to the familiarity of our shared species, perhaps I didn't mind Carlisle because he loved Esme so clearly and so I recognised that he was no threat; perhaps it was that I had been brought up to trust doctors. Whatever it was, I accepted them almost immediately in a way I had never managed with humans.

Oh, I had had friends. There had been around me circle upon circle of friends, but never had there been any whom I would tell everything. Even my closest friend, whose name had been—was—Vera, I had not told everything. When she married, I did not tell her that I thought her husband was beneath her; rather I told another circle of society girls. My parents I told next to nothing of what I felt and hoped and dreamed; they could guess most of it well enough, and the rest would never have concerned them. My father in particular would have dismissed most of my thoughts as frivolous and a waste of energy.

I marvelled that within a day of first meeting them properly, I knew almost all there was to know about Carlisle and Esme. Edward, not so much.

I unpacked my few satchels slowly in the room that had now been designated as mine. They let me choose, though Esme assured me that the room on the east had beautiful views of the sunrise. The east room became mine. Within, there was a bed, a large double bed with a deep green coverlet, reflecting the forest outside. For something that three people had built without professional help, I suppose it was impressive: there were even glass windows. It was odd to be thinking of windows as impressive. The furniture was simple and made of pine, and there was only a wardrobe and a dresser. It was functional, and perhaps it was pretty, but it wasn't _my _sort of pretty. My style of beautiful was luxurious and rich.

Edward wasn't there. He'd unpacked his few bags and gone, presumably hunting for I couldn't see what else there was to do, though I gathered that he'd quietly let Carlisle know while Esme and I were consoling each other.

What worried me was the manner in which I had gathered this, namely overhearing. I simply couldn't help it; a voice drew my attention and now it was very difficult to escape from earshot. In itself this didn't bother me overmuch. It was more that I knew I would overhear everything in this hut. House, I corrected myself. _Everything_. Every word, every sigh, every movement. It sounded like hell. Even changing my clothing, I could hear every rustle of the material, every seam that stretched slightly upon being introduced to my new body.

I was still preoccupied with this as I left my room and began to wander the house. Every now and again something would catch me off guard: the complete absence of a kitchen, for example. The silence and the noise. Used as I was to bustling Rochester, the lack of evidence of people was unnerving, and yet I could hear far more here than I had ever heard in New York. It was as I was pondering this that I came across the piano.

Esme and Carlisle were in their room, I knew, quietly discussing Edward, and I found that I'd rather not call them to ask whose this instrument was. It was nothing grand, only a simple stand up piano, and the layer of dust upon it was thick. In the corner of the sitting room it rested, dormant, placed so the player's back would be to those who listened in the rustic wooden chairs on the other side of the room. The stool, too, was covered in dust and I wondered how long this hut—house—had stood empty.

Gently, ever so gently, I swept the grime off the stool and raised the lid.

Once seated, I found myself at a loss. Of course I had taken piano lessons in Rochester until the age of fifteen, and I was musician enough to be able to play a few simple airs from memory. My father had pronounced my playing beautiful, though my mother was more doubtful. I knew myself that I could play to the standard deemed necessary, though it had been an uphill struggle to reach that standard. I had taken lessons from at least six different tutors over the years.

The problem was that I could not remember a single thing. _Middle C_, I told myself, and placed it, but beyond that, there was nothing. I was tempted to panic at yet another lost facet of my past, but I stopped myself with forcible effort.

For the first time in my life, I followed the instructions of each of those six piano tutors and began with a simple scale.

_Do re mi fa so la ti do._

Then with both hands together, an octave apart. Then two octaves at a time. Then in the key of D major, with an F and C sharp. Then in D minor, with a B flat and the raised seventh. And then arpeggios, in the same progression, C major, D major, D minor. And then the broken chords. The keys of B flat major and E flat major.

I didn't notice that Esme and Carlisle had stopped talking.

Finally, tentatively, I began to play. It was the first proper piece I had ever learnt, and one I played often because of the way my fingers used to remember it, without even looking at the keys. _Air in D minor_, by Henry Purcell. I played it slowly, softly, with only the faintest of dynamics. To anyone listening I would have sounded as though I had just learnt it, and in a way I had. It was so different to play as a vampire. Once I had played one position, I knew my fingers would find it again with certainty. But before I could reach that point, I had to dredge up each chord progression from my muddied memory, and hope I could recall what had once been second nature to me.

Three times I played it, each time adding something, the first the use of the pedal and some gentle dynamics and the second some improvised ornamentation.

On the third repeat I left the last chord sustained, hanging in the air, and at long last realised that I had an audience. I spun around in surprise to find not two listeners but three. Edward had returned and was watching me with the tiniest of smiles.

"You play?" he asked.

"Evidently," I returned, but without perhaps as much sarcasm as was required. "I suppose you do too?"

He nodded. "It will get easier," he volunteered.

"As with everything, apparently."

He smiled again, glancing ever so briefly at Carlisle and Esme, knowing they had used that line far too many times already. "Once you've played something once, you'll remember it. Quicker reflexes help with sight reading, too."

"I hated sight reading," I confessed.

"I loved it."

But he didn't say anymore, and I became aware that the others were watching us, Carlisle with muted amazement and Esme with an affectionate look. Our brief conversation withered, and died.

Carlisle stepped in. "I've never been musical, myself," he admitted. "Though Edward tried to teach me."

"From what I hear, it was a disaster," Esme put in.

"It was," Edward muttered.

From the way they both beamed, you would never have thought that he had just insulted Carlisle.

"Will you play something?" I asked Edward.

Every smile faltered. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but at the same time I didn't. I thought I might have a vague idea. Still, I stood, brushed the lingering dust off my skirts and moved aside for him. Esme, at least, didn't breathe as he replaced me on the piano stool.

Unlike me, he didn't begin with scales or exercises. He didn't stretch his fingers with a flourish. He merely placed his hands upon the keyboard and played.

And play he did. Where I had been merely reciting, Edward gave his music life and let it dance. The piece, if indeed it were a piece, flowed from him as though unrehearsed, though he would have had me believe that he played from memory alone. Accents rose through the music and burst like soap bubbles, raining down on us mere immortals like manna. For someone who had at least a slight musical ear, it was divine. The tone of the piece was much like my _Air_, subdued and tranquil to begin, building to a crescendo and then moving to a quiet finish, but I almost didn't notice, so lost was I in the music.

When it ended, I found myself quite unable to speak.

He turned back to us and still I was speechless, so Esme came to me and touched my arm gently.

"He's rather a musical prodigy," she said, sotto voce.

"I gathered that," I managed to say.

Edward's eyebrows twitched together. "You're not upset by that?"

I wasn't sure. In one way I'd been so clearly surpassed and rendered useless and I was insanely jealous of the beauty his music had. In another I was quite comfortable with my own level of proficiency; I much preferred to be the passive listener rather than the performer. Still:

"Not unless you refuse to teach me."

Edward quirked a smile. "Of course."

I think that was the moment when Edward decided to like me. He was much like that, Edward; he thought far more with his head than his heart. When he saw that I was willing to learn something, he revised his opinion of me which had previously been born of half-impressions and third hand knowledge to include that fact, and he decided that I wasn't all shallow beauty and arrogance. For the first time, as I saw Edward judge me in this manner, I became aware that this was the impression people must gain of me.

I didn't dwell on it, of course. I let the flicker of self-awareness disappear like a semiquaver, gone before you've even had a chance to notice how much it adds to the music.

"Let me dust in here first," Esme said.

"I'll write out some music," Edward told me.

And so life began in the Great Smoky Mountains.

* * *

_A/N: Not the end, whatever it sounds like. And apologies to non-musical people out there - I've got a concert coming up next week and am consequently in a rather musical mood. Look out for the same theme in the upcoming chapter of Another Life._


	7. Murderer

It wasn't always as easy as relearning my arpeggios. Quite often, whether it was upon being taught something in a manner I conceived to be condescending or whether it was upon discovering that brushing my hair required far more delicacy than once it did, I would fly into a sudden rage or a sudden despair. It was just so different! My life had been static from birth to death; always had I been the favourite daughter, the prized child. It had been a simple progression from indulged girl to an accomplished young lady. This transition was anything but simple.

My three compatriots never begrudged me my outbursts. They let me weep or seethe as the mood struck me, and when I was recovered, there was always Esme, waiting to talk to me, or a piece of music waiting for me on the piano's music rest. Had I been in any mind to appreciate anything, I might have appreciated that Edward didn't impose his company on me, instead leaving me to pick through the piece alone.

Time passed in this manner, and I gradually found myself relaxing properly into the company of this strange little family. Esme became the sister I never had, an older sister who wanted not to compete with me, but to help me. This was one change that I could not resent. Such a gentle soul she was; it seemed impossible that she could ever cause pain to anyone. As I opened up further to her, it never once felt that I was forced into this new relationship through lack of other contact. I genuinely wanted this bond with her.

For one thing, it was easier to learn from her how to be a vampire. I did not want any condescension from a man, not even one such as Carlisle. Far less shameful to be taught by Esme, who was the last to learn, who understood better than the men my desire for modesty. Where before I had considered this location remote and alien, now I welcomed it for its isolation. There was no chance that we would run into a human, and so I could go to hunt with only Esme to take care of me. It was with her that I first gloried in the sight of my sparkling skin. It was with her that I practiced my hunting technique. And it was with her that I slowly began to accept that being a vampire could become normality.

Slowly, we began to learn each other's lives. She encouraged me to relive my human memories, and so I told her of my parents, my brother, my friends. In return, she recounted to me her upbringing, her escape, her second life, as she called it. She did not discuss her first marriage. I did not raise the topic of my fiancé. We would, I sensed, but not yet. The closest we ever got was our discussion of her family.

Our family? No, not quite. If I had to use the analogy of relatives, I would perhaps consider myself a cousin. There was no shared history between us, no shared traits. Furthermore, I could not nominate myself Rosalie Cullen. That simply wasn't me. I was Rosalie Hale, and I felt sure I would be for evermore. Too many times had I heard those words, hissed almost out of earshot: "That's Rosalie Hale." It was part of my charm, that I was a Hale. There was part of me that couldn't give that up.

It was one night, after we had hunted and I had kept for the first time the entirety of my dress, that I asked about her entrance into the family.

"Did you find it difficult?"

She inclined her head. "Yes and no. Yes in that I was very uncontrolled as a newborn. I found it hard to control my emotions, harder than you do. You know in what circumstances my first life ended; those emotions stayed with me. What was more, we were closer to a human town. I… I killed a man."

Her voice was no more than a breath as she made this admission. I was certainly shocked, but I didn't blame her, and that shocked me further. Still, I had had drummed into me many a time the impossibility of resisting a human scent so young.

"What was worse, he had a family. Two daughters and a wife. And I… But even Carlisle, who hates murder so vehemently, he never once let me take responsibility for that," she said. "I was never sure whether it would have been better had he blamed me. At least then I could have felt my own guilt, without worrying over his. He blamed himself, for leaving me alone, as did Edward. They accepted me so easily." Here, she smiled. "Carlisle knew me from when I was a foolish child of sixteen with a broken leg. On some level, we loved each other even then. There was never any notion that he could decide not to accept me, even if I took a while to realise that."

"Your relationship." I paused, unsure how to word my rather crude question. "It's different to a human one, isn't it?"

"I've never had anything to which I can compare it," she reminded me, causing me to flinch before I could stop myself. "But from what I've felt, and seen, and from what Carlisle has told me, vampiric relationships are very different to those of humans. For example, there has never been a record of a vampire leaving their mate. Never. Even for those who... are more violent, less sociable, they mate for life, however long that may be."

I knew she was talking of human drinkers, of natural vampires. The idea still disgusted me, though I had never yet been exposed to that temptation.

"Still, it's very rare for vampires to stay in groups of more than two. As a rule, we're more… animalistic. And those who are not mates are far more likely to go their own ways. The competition for food drives most covens to separate."

"Why did Edward stay with Carlisle, then?" I asked, my curiosity piqued.

Esme considered my question. "I don't know, at least not after Edward first… acclimatised. He needed help with his gift, and with his thirst. A few months, though, and he could have left. Perhaps he wanted company, perhaps he had grown accustomed to having Carlisle's mind around. Whatever it was, he grew to love Carlisle." Her smile was nostalgic. "I wish you could have seen them, back then. They were such a pair; you could almost believe they shared one mind. Before I knew about the mindreading, that's what I thought it was."

This was not what I saw day to day between the two of them. "What happened?" I probed.

With a sigh, Esme closed her eyes briefly. "I did," she told me. "I replaced Edward in Carlisle's affections. Of course, we couldn't help it; imagine meeting your soulmate. We were utterly inseparable. That's hard enough for anyone on the outside, but for a mindreader? And neither of us noticed before it was too late..."

"Too late?" I questioned.

Now she looked at me as though she were almost nervous. "Please don't think less of him," she said.

"Whom? Why?"

"Edward. He… he left us for a while. For four years. He… didn't want to live like us anymore."

As far as I could tell, she was making little sense. "In what way?"

Her eyes were full of pain as she whispered her response. "Our diet."

I was standing yards away before I realised I had even reacted. Esme stood to face me, to beg me: "He only took those who were themselves preying on society. The criminals, the murderers, the... He didn't take innocents. And he came back. Don't judge him too harshly."

"But he was a murderer!"

I saw how much it cost her to say: "So was I."

That drew me up short. Even if she had never intended to kill, she had. And her victim had not been a criminal, but an ordinary man. Without thinking about it, I touched the fingers of my left hand onto the ring that still adorned my right.

Wasn't I intending, too, to be a murderer?

I hadn't thought much on my plans for retribution on Royce. I hadn't forgotten, because it was impossible, but I hadn't exactly considered it for much time. Once or twice it had strayed into my mind, but I had let the thought drift away equally quickly. For one thing, there was no point thinking on my plan when I had no way of implementing it. I couldn't venture into human territory without wanting to drink from them, something I swore I would never do. I couldn't even consider going anywhere near Royce for fear that I might drink from him, and that was almost more repugnant than the idea of killing an innocent. Why, I wasn't sure. It was something to do with my desire to have no connection with him. Carlisle's venom had burnt away the signs of Roy's attack; I didn't want to taint this new body as my human one had been tainted.

Time, therefore, was one factor. Another was simply practicalities. I couldn't let Carlisle or Esme know of my plans. How they would disagree! They would try so hard to stop me, and I couldn't let that happen. As much as I couldn't stand the idea of killing any random human, neither could I stand the idea of leaving Royce alive. As such, I could not fail. I wanted his murder to be planned and foolproof, and I wanted him to be waiting for it.

Small ideas had already come to me. It would not be hard to find out where Royce was living, if indeed he had even moved. I could simply telephone the bank where he worked and claim to be my own cousin.

Still, there were other factors to which I did want to give more thought. For instance, Royce was not my only attacker.

I knew them all. Henry Westhorpe, who worked at the bank. Richard Worth, who had attended school with my brother. William Mountview, whose father I knew had approached mine over the possibilities of a match between us. John Townsend, who lived in Atlanta and had come up to Rochester for the wedding.

Atlanta was not far from the Smoky Mountains. Not for me, at least.

This was a factor which I had been contemplating more and more, recently. I did not want to rush my revenge on Royce. I did not want to in any way jeopardise my one chance of ending his life as he had mine. John Townsend, I cared about little. His death could be messy, a trial run, a dress rehearsal, and it wouldn't bother me.

It would also mean that Royce would know I was coming.

Yet it wasn't as easy as heading off now to Atlanta. Even without the bloodlust, I simply wouldn't know what to do. I was fairly sure I could remain in the shadows, hide myself under cover of night, but I would have to find him, and find him alone. I would have to ensure he couldn't make a noise. Then I would have to kill him without alerting anyone to my presence. And finally, I would have to leave without letting anyone suspect me.

This last, I felt, was hardly an issue. Why would any authority suspect a dead woman? If they were to put suspicion on anyone, it would be on my family, my brother perhaps. I didn't want that, either, but my brother was never without companions. He would have an alibi for any given night. When would any of my family come down to Atlanta, anyway?

No one would suspect a vampire, either. I had no plans to drain their blood. In fact, if I were going to avoid that eventuality, I would have to kill them without spilling a single drop. Perhaps a broken neck.

It was at this point that I realised that my human self would never have got so far as this in planning a murder. How could I have ever stomached the idea of snapping the neck of a man, of five men? And yet I wasn't the same person as I had been before that frozen night. I had killed too many animals with my bare hands to shy away from death. I had suffered too much at the hands of those I trusted to flinch from the idea of betrayal.

And I was a vampire. Murder was a natural instinct for me. Just as it was for Edward.

Finally remembering where I was and who I was with, I turned back to Esme. "I'm sorry," I said. "It shocked me. I think… I think I understand."

Her face relaxed. "I'm so glad. He's not proud of it, you understand."

"No, of course not," I replied, but they were merely words.

Edward was a murderer. He knew that I intended to kill my ex-fiancé. And he hadn't told Carlisle or Esme. How could he? What he had done was far worse than anything I had in mind.

Perhaps I had found the key to managing these feats. Perhaps Edward could help me.


End file.
